What you DON’T KNOW Might be Stopping You In Trading

If you have read the introduction to my courses on Market Apprentice, you would realise that I am a big advocate that you need the 3Ms – Mind, Market & Method – to be a successful trader.

Just to be clear, the 3Ms goes beyond the idea of just Fundamentals, Technical Analysis and Sentiment because all these are (in my view) only a sub group of the trading Methods. While these are important trading concepts to know, the 3 Ms trumps them any time.

Anyway, moving on from that, here’s something that is very crucial about trading that you must know to help you accelerate your success.

You see, while many traders start off focusing on the Market and gradually learning about the Method, they forget that the Mind is actually the most challenging of the 3Ms.

Hence, it only takes a seasoned trader to realised that the correct sequence and priority of the 3Ms should be

Mind

Market

Method

Can you see that the Mind comes before both the Method and the Market? And it is the most important of the trio?

The Challenge of Learning

But here’s the interesting part, most traders cannot start working on the Mind without the understanding what it take to master the method and the market.

Why? Because they cannot visualise, hear or feel what it means to have discipline, to have trading emotions or may be to have sleepless nights from trading.

That’s just like learning how to cook a dish without knowing how/what the dish taste like. You can’t really learn to cook that specific dish even if you have the ingredients, can you? Of course, there will be some who can cook the dish and that’s usually because they are familiar with cooking already.

Make sense?

At the same time, you do get some traders who can achieve success instantly and become consistent traders in 1-2 years as well. In fact, I have seen a few of them. However, they are the minority.

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Hence, there is a GAP in the learning process and that’s the main point of today’s article (and the main objective of having this website). In fact, the idea of What you Don’t Know Might be Stopping You In Trading is not a new one, it’s just very often overlooked.

If you have been trading for awhile now and you’re still struggling to trade successfully, then you would understand what I mean by the Gap, wouldn’t you?

The Issue of Not Knowing

And that leads me to my next point. The Gap that I was referring to, can sometimes just means Not Knowing What To Do Next.

You’ve tried everything you possibly can, but you are not progressing yet. You’ve run out of ideas on where you can focus and you don’t know what to do next.

Sounds familiar?

As you can imagine, if you don’t already know about the 3Ms, in all your trading life, you only focus on the Method and the Market of trading. You have read all sorts of books and learnt about any thing that has to do with the trading (market and methods) including the Fundamentals, Technical Analysis and Sentiment aspects of it. Yet, you can’t seem to trade profitably still. And you really don’t know what to do any more.

Are you in such situation?

This is not a new thing because most trading schools or most successful traders became successful because they already have an in-built and naturally strong trader’s mind. For them, they already have what it takes. However, what happens when they try to teach it? Most of the time, the actual knowledge on the Mind is not transferred.

Why?

That’s because most of what they know of the Mind are unconscious.

For example, if you have a problem with “Following Your Rules” and you approach an already successful trader. The chances are, he/she will explain the importance of having rules and they will try to influence you by showing you the results when you follow the rules. This method works for some but it does not always work for everyone. Agree?

If yes, but why not?

Simple, do you think they can break the topic down into areas involving your conscious and unconscious habits? Do you think they can explain how the unconscious mind works by using scientifically proven methodologies?

Maybe they can cover simple topics but if they have not received any formal training on this area, do you think they can do a good job. I don’t think so.

Do you see what I mean?

Are You Open to New Things?

In all honesty, there’s nothing wrong with not knowing what you don’t know. The real question is, are you open to finding new alternatives? Or are you secretly insisting that you want to remain the same? Because there’s a thin line between persistence and ignorance.

And, as they say, it’s ok to be ignorant once in awhile. However, it is NOT OK if that’s the main thing that is stopping you from moving forward.

Agree?

Reading this now, you already know what I mean by the 3Ms and prioritising the Mind, and you are now AWARE that there are alternatives and getting help from traders who have been trained in the areas of the Mind is an investment worth considering. Right?

And just to be extra clear, sometimes, I’m not even talking about topics that are extra ordinary when I talk about the traders mind. In fact, my biggest passion is working on the subject of Beliefs and Limiting Beliefs.

Potential Limiting Beliefs

With that, and for your benefit, the typical limiting beliefs that can easily hinder a trader from becoming successful are simple but life changing limiting beliefs like these:

I’m a slow learner.

I’m not important.

It’s impossible to be successful.

I’m not capable.

I’m a failure.

I’m stupid.

I’m not worthy.

Mistakes and failure are bad.

I’m not good enough.

Change is difficult.

Nothing I do is good enough.

I’m not competent.

I’m not skilful enough.

If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.

I need to be perfect.

I’ll never get what I want.

The problem is that they are so simple yet so difficult to remove. Traders think it’s a minor issue. However, it’s not minor when it’s stopping you from

Pulling the trigger

Self-sabotage

Breaking your trading rules

Moving into positive territories

And the list could go on.

Conclusion

Now that you understand that there is a potential Gapin your trading knowledge and that’s the thing that is holding you back. And reading this article, you can start to be aware that

There is this thing called the 3Ms – Now, you can go all out to learn about the market and method yet knowing that there’s this thing about the Mind where you will revisit one day and

Training on the Mind is a big area and to master this, you may require professional help – because they are trained in this area.

Anyway, I hope this topic is useful. If you have any queries, please feel free to post it below or to message me directly here.